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Henrik Zetterberg has nine points over the last nine games and is tied for the team lead with 12 points.

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The Detroit Red Wings take their two-game winning streak against the red-hot San Jose Sharks at Joe Louis Arena tonight. The Sharks are on a six-game winning streak, leading the Pacific Division with 23 points and trailing only the Colorado Avalanche (24 points) in the Western Conference.

San Jose comes in having beaten the Columbus Blue Jackets Wednesday night 3-2 via a shootout. 8-2 in the last 10 games, Patrick Marleau has scored a point in his last nine starts for the Sharks. Dany Heatley is tied for sixth in the league in goals with 10. Meanwhile, Evgeni Nabokov has a sparking 10-3-1 record in 2009, with a 2.38 goals against average.

It's the first meeting of 2009-10 for these two teams: they split the regular season series last year, with the home team winning every game.

The game is on FSN-Detroit and CSN California. Comment away below!

by Jimmy Jeong - AP

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The Wings return to the Joe from the road trip on a good note following the win over Calgary. As if facing Ilya Bryzgalov, Roberto Luongo, Craig Anderson, and Miikka Kiprusoff weren't enough, the Wings get the defending Vezina Trophy winner Tim Thomas to shoot at tonight. Thomas also benefits from a good defense around him to help keep shots to the outside. Although the offense isn't nearly as potent this year as last year, the Bruins still have undeniable talent and much like the Red Wings are trying to simply coordinate it all in an effective manner.

Two teams on the relatively same page in terms of dominance last year and sputtering thus far this year are realizing the points are going to be precious this year. Should be a hard fought game with lots of effort from both sides.

What to look for: The physicality of Boston versus the injured/sick Red Wings. I'm looking forward to watching Pavel Datsyuk versus Zdeno Chara. Will Tomas Holmstrom continue on his offensive resurgence? 

Puck drops at 7 p.m. ET and will air on Versus or TSN. As always, GO WINGS!

Stanley Cup of Chowder is the SBNation Bruins site.

by Paul Sancya - AP

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The Detroit Red Wings finally wrap up their five-game, 11-day road trip tonight in Calgary against the Flames.

The biggest development for the Wings this week was the loss of forward Valtteri Filppula, who broke his wrist on Thursday evening in a game against Edmonton. He will be out 6-8 weeks.

"Obviously, I feel terrible," said Filppula, who recently was moved up to the second line. "But there's nothing I can do about it now."

The injury occurred on a hard, clean check by Gilbert Brule.

"It's a big blow, obviously," Babcock said. "We're going to have to buckle down as a team. It doesn't matter who's not here. It's about who is here. We are going to miss Fil. You don't replace good players like that. But we have to find a way to win games."

In other news, Ville Leino has been scratched from the lineup today which I find surprising since they lost Filppula to injury, but head coach Mike Babcock has made it clear he has not been pleased with Leino's play so far this season.

"Ville’s not working on any line. That’s clear. He’s having a day to watch,'' Babcock said. "He hasn’t played hard enough, so he’s going to watch the game and the other guys are going to play.’’

Chris Osgood will get the start in net tonight and here's what he told The Detroit News about it:

"I feel good," he said. "I have to play better than I did in Vancouver, but it was only (seven) minutes. I would have hoped to stay in but I didn't get that opportunity. I have to let that go and move on."

The Calgary Herald spoke with Todd Bertuzzi, who played for the Flames last year, about his return to the Wings this season.

You can catch tonight's game on CBC and FSDetroit Plus when the puck drops at 10 p.m. EDT. Don't know which channel FSDetroit Plus is on? Visit this page at FoxSports.com for that info. Go Wings!

by Darryl Dyck - AP

Slick Willy celebrates the game winning goal against Vancouver (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Darryl Dyck)

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Detroit comes off a much needed win over the Canucks, scoring five times on one of the league's elite goalies Roberto Luongo. They'll need some more of that type of offensive production again tonight against the Oilers. Nikolai Khabibulin will likely start for the Oilers and Jimmy Howard will start in net for Detroit, coming off his first win of the season in relief effort of Chris Osgood. The top line of Dustin Penner, Sam Gagner, and Ales Hemsky has been good for the Oilers and could make things hard on Detroit if the wrong lines are out there against them. 

For my statistical preview of the Oilers from yesterday, click here or simply scroll down.

What to look for: Look for Tomas Holmstrom and Pavel Datsyuk to try and continue on their recent success tonight. Valtteri Filppula is another guy to watch that could get some good offensive chances--passing and shooting--against this Oilers team that allows a good chunk of shots.

Puck drops at 9:30 PM ET and will air on FS-D and TSN. As always, GO WINGS!

Oilers SB Nation member: The Copper & Blue. Derek Zona of The Copper & Blue had this interesting bit on the Oilers:

The Oiler flu has struck. At least 13 players have now been affected by some version of the flu, including H1N1 carrier Ladislav Smid.
Some have played through it - Dustin Penner, Smid, Tom Gilbert - others have either left games or been a scratch - Ales Hemsky, Gilbert Brule, Mike Comrie, Lubomir Visnovsky. Combined with concussions for Sheldon Souray and Steve Staios and a lingering back problem for Fernando Pisani, the Oilers are suffering at this point. Their red-hot start has ground to a halt with the onset of the flu. If Visnovsky is unable to go tonight, the Oilers will have Jason Strudwick, Taylor Chorney, and Theo Peckham in the lineup. It could get ugly.

Complete game coverage here: Red Wings vs Oilers coverage

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by Jerry S. Mendoza - AP

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These two teams met a week ago in Detroit and will meet again tonight to put two of the four games for the season in the books. In that first meeting, Colorado took the game 4-3 in a shoot out following a late rally from the group from Denver. Tonight's game will hopefully be different as the Red Wings will look to possibly take advantage of a team that may be tired following its 5-4 win over Carolina last night.

Patrick Eaves will start tonight as Justin Abdelkader will take a seat. Helm will center that line and will likely have Maltby at the other wing position.

What to look for: Valtteri Filppula's line to continue the success it has had thus far this season as well as Tomas Holmstrom's unexpected boom. The key to the game tonight will be how Jimmy Howard plays in his first start in the blue paint since the Sweden trip.

The puck will drop at about 9 p.m. ET and the game will air on FS-D. As always, GO WINGS!

Mile High Hockey

Red Wings vs Avalanche coverage

by Carlos Osorio - AP

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The Red Wings kick off their five-game, 11-day road trip tonight in Phoenix against the Coyotes, who are off to a surprisingly hot 5-2-0 start. On the other hand, Detroit is having a rough go initially with a 3-3-1 record. A win tonight would extend the Coyotes to a four-game winning streak, while a win would snap a one-game losing skid for Detroit.

Star forward Pavel Datsyuk hopes to play tonight, but the decision has yet to be made definitively.

The Wings have struggled with maintaining a lead this season, allowing 3+ goals in a single period four times already this year. Not only will the offense have to play big against the stingy Phoenix defense, but the Wings' defense needs to be on guard as they hope to get off to a good start on this tough western road trip.

The puck is slated to drop at 10 p.m. EDT and will be televised on FSDetroit. Go Wings!

More photos » by Paul Sancya - AP

Nicklas Lidstrom acknowledges the crowd after scoring his 1,000th career point Thursday.

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The Red Wings come off their strong 5-2 win over the Los Angeles Kings with the very hot Colorado Avalanche. Joe Hass will be live blogging...follow along below!

Avalanche vs Red Wings coverage

by NIKLAS LARSSON - AP

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Your favorite rhyming match-up is back as the LA Kings come into Detroit to take on the hometown Red Wings. LA has been impressive to say the least and possesses great offensive and defensive talent. Winners of four of their last five, the Kings dropped last night's contest to the New York Rangers to end the winning streak at five. Detroit will look to add another loss to the Kings' record as the the Wings come off an embarrassing 6-2 loss at the hands of the Sabres. 

As if the loss of Johan Franzen wasn't enough to the offense, Pavel Datsyuk is out of tonight's game with an undisclosed injury. The Wings will have to play much tighter defensively than they did against the Sabres to stop this talented LA team. 

What to look for: Look for guys like Ville Leino and Valtteri Filppula to get behind the LA defense with some odd-man rush chances. Also look for Henrik Zetterberg to get things going in the absence of Pavel Datsyuk. 

Puck drops at 7:30 p.m. ET and the game will air on FS-Detroit and FS-W. As always, GO WINGS!

LA Blogs: Battle of California (SBNation) and The Royal Half